Challenges for treatment of cardiovascular diseases based on stem cells

Introduction: Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the primary cause of death worldwide, and the development of scar tissue in myocardium and also the irreversible destruction of cardiomyocytes are the main factors in their development. There are still limitations in medical treatment of CVD, despite the advances in the field of drug therapy and surgery for CVD. In recent years, research on stem cells has led to potential application of them in in various clinical and pre-clinical trials to treat various cardiovascular diseases given the unique features of stem cells. However, the results of clinical trials have been inconsistent on human samples and have had limited therapeutic effects. To overcome these limitations, the exact diagnosis of disease, identification of stem cells, their method of injection and mechanism of action, as well as patient's individual profile are necessary to predict the response to stem cell therapy, provide the highest quality of treatment and reduce the side effects. In the present study, we have introduced different types of stem cells, their injection methods and mechanisms of action for cell therapy in CVD as well as the challenges posed in this field. Also, solutions for genetic and non-genetic manipulations are suggested to increase the survival and efficiency of stem cells. For this purpose, the articles published between 1992 and 2018 were studied using the following keywords: "stem cell", "cell therapy", "injection", "tissue engineering" and " Gene therapy".